Having played cash games for about six years online, I have reached the stage where I really need a change. I get like this every so often and I need something else to focus on. During my time playing online I have drifted from limit full ring games to limit six max games to SNG’s to no limit six max and pot limit Omaha. But until recently I had swerved online tournament poker like the plague and tournament poker in general. It was for the simple reason that it wasn’t where the money was either online or live. Sure there were players doing well playing large online MTT’s but the variance is wicked and unless you are staking other players and being staked then the bad years can wipe you out.One of the main problems with regards to playing large online MTT’s are the structures. I have recently started playing the large MTT tournaments on Cake Poker every Sunday evening although I haven’t got off to a very good start with the first three that I have played.
There is definitely plenty of dead money in these events and if there is plenty of dead money then there has to be profit making potential somewhere. One of the problems that I knew that I would face was shifting my mindset from one of playing cash games to tournament poker.
But these were not slow WSOP main event type structures but structures that afforded you very little time to play poker. It was only recently that I actually started to view online poker tournaments through a slightly different light. In the past these super fast structures just highlighted the word ‘crapshoot’ in my mind but on closer inspection, there are definite winning styles associated with these events.
There are several different styles of play and philosophy that are associated with these tournaments. In one camp we have the accumulators who start off playing quickly at the very beginning in an attempt to acquire chips early and stay ahead of the curve. In fact this was the basis of the excellent book by Arnold Snyder on this very topic.
There is a lot of merit to this style of play and it can certainly create a big stack if you happen to get lucky during the early stages. But one of the problems that faces all players who play fast structured online tournaments is the rapidly increasing blind to stack ratio. Once again, using the 100k guaranteed tournament on Cake Poker as an example.
When the blinds have reached the 200-400 level which is only during the second hour of play then the average stack is only in the region of about T9000 which is only 22 big blinds. This leaves most players with very little room for manoeuvre. What it also means is that the players who have not increased their stack during the early phase are now going to be killing each other relentlessly.
This is the argument for starting quickly but yet this style of play of taking substantial risks very early is certainly not proven to be the best way to play. But there is also another style of play that seems to have equal validity and that is to start more slowly and wait until the crazies get knocked out. In the meantime you may find that you hit one or two chances to double through.
This happened to me during tournament number one in which I had pocket kings and someone crazily over bet the pot all in with A-Q and they spiked an ace on me. But I could have easily doubled up here and when you do so then there is the strong possibility that you are going to enter a whole new phase of play in which many of the crazy players have been eliminated and the players who are left are a lot closer to the money and thus more fearful of busting out.
This fear of busting out is a very important factor in large MTT’s over events like SNG’s for instance. An SNG can be over in as little as thirty minutes and will be over after an hour at the latest. What this means is that the average player feels that they haven’t invested a great deal of time and they don’t treat the bubble as seriously as in a large tournament.
Not only are you potentially playing for more money in MTT’s but the time expenditure is also greater and these factors lead to increased fear. It is this increased fear that can be exploited but if you use this strategy then this means that you will likely miss out on any dead money that may have been available by being too tight during the early phase.
You cannot have it both ways and I am damned if I know which style is better but one thing is for sure, I am going to enjoy the prospect of finding out.